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Monday, October 17, 2011

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE SUPERNATURAL?

One that you believe in bright sunlight. And the one that you fear is true in the shadows on a strange, moonlit street.

I know. I've had too many occasions to walk the dark streets of the French Quarter at night. I wasn't suicidal. I was broke. I saw street crime naturally. I also saw glimpses of things my rational mind refused to consider.

To focus my mind off those glimpses, I tried to make a list of movies with scenes involving lone walkers at night in the growing fog. Word to the wise. Don't do that. It really doesn't help. At all.

New Orleans has been called a Twilight City, for it rises from civilized slumber to bustling life at night.

Performers often line the streets, pushers sell their brands of death, prostitutes promise sex as if it were love, dancers weave through the partiers on the street, and music throbs through the veins of the French Quarter.

If the undead do exist, they walk lazily down streets in front of buildings dating back hundreds of years. In that sense, they would be at home. It is we the living who could be thought of as intruders there.

New Orleans is famous for its "Cities of the Dead."

Since the city is below sea level, it is filled with above the ground tombs instead of graves in the moist earth.

One of the most famous of these "cities" is St. Louis Cemetery #1, established in 1789 and considered by many as being the final resting place of the infamous voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau. But Samuel McCord would tell you differently. He still visits her occasionally if the situation is dire enough to warrant risking suicide.

Samuel McCord, of course, believes in the supernatural.

How could he not? Especially after this dark scene of the supernatural from FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE.

Samuel is walking to the Convention Center the first night after Katrina. A wheelchair-bound woman has told him of the raping of women and young girls by drunken gang members.

It is a tale he must check out for himself. Long ago he was unable to prevent the murder of his own sister, and he is compelled to rescue each young girl he sees in danger.

***

As I made my way down the flooded street towards the Convention Center, I looked up at the full moon. It seemed closer than civilization or any semblance of rescue. If there was to be any help for those suffering at the center, it would have to come from me.

I had heard the Superdome was in equally bad shape. I shook my head. To get there, I would have to head north where the water was still chest-deep over the streets. It would take a miracle for me to help those at the Convention Center.

The Superdome was on its own. I might be monster not man, but I was only one monster. And Maudie had bought my help with her bravery and her disregard for her own safety.

As I waded along into the night, the black mists curled and creamed in the humid darkness like an unspoken fear trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness. A trick of the thick air, the moon of blood leered down upon its reflection on the dark waters of the flooded street.

Ripples of its long bloody image flowed from the floating dead body of a cat, looking like fingers caressing its kill. The cat’s death apparently hadn't been pretty nor was its corpse. The night became colder than it should have been. Much, much colder.

Rind, the Angelus of Death, whispered in my blood. “At night the dead come back to drink from the living.”

I didn’t need Rind to tell me that the night was not my friend. Too much death had happened too recently.

Because of Rind's blood in my veins, I could see them slowly circling, hear their trailing, splashing steps behind me, feel the heat of their sunken, hungry eyes upon my back and throat.

Were they soul-echoes, mere refracted memory of a will? Or were there such things as literal ghosts? Just because I could see them didn't mean that I understood what they were.

I turned the corner and came upon the startled, fragile grace of a too-white egret standing alert in the middle of the flooded street, staring back at me.

Its long sleek neck slowly cocked its sloping head at me. Then, gathering its huge wings, it launched itself into the air with its long black legs. I saw the spirits of the dead around me longingly stare after its curved flight of grace and freedom into the dark sky.

I felt a tug on my left jacket sleeve. I looked down. My chest grew cold.

The dead face of a little girl was looking up at me. Or rather the face of her lost, wandering spirit, her full black eyes glistening like twin pools of oil.

Her face was a wrenching mix of fear and longing. She tried to speak. Nothing came out of her moving lips. Looking like she was on the verge of tears, she tugged on my sleeve again and pointed to the end of the block. I followed her broken-nailed finger. I shivered.

She was pointing to her own corpse.

I took in a ragged breath I didn’t need to compose myself. The Convention Center would have to wait. I had sworn a long time ago that no child would ever ask my help without getting it.

A haunted singing was faint on the breeze. Somewhere the dead had found their voices.

I nodded to the girl’s spirit and waded to her corpse, the force of the rushing flood waters having washed it up onto the sidewalk and against a store front where it slowly bobbed in place.

I saw the girl’s spirit out of the corner of my eye, studying the shell of flesh she had once worn. Her head was turned slightly to one side. The expression to her face was sorrowful and wistful at the same time. She pointed again.

I followed her bloody finger. A rosary all wrapped up in the balled fingers of her left hand.

She gestured sharply, then looked at me with eyes echoing things I did not want to see.

I nodded again and kneeled down beside the girl’s swollen corpse. I pried the rosary loose, wrapping it around the fingers of my own gloved left hand.

I looked up at the girl’s spirit. She just stood there frowning as if in concentration. Her brow furrowed, her tiny fists balled, and her jaws clenched. I could swear beads of sweat appeared on her ghostly forehead.

I jerked as suddenly guttural words were forced from the long-dead throat of the corpse at my boots. “T-Tell M-Mama ... peaceful now.”

And with that, she looked up into the night. I followed her eyes. She was looking at the retreating body of the egret slowly flying into a filmy, billowing cloud. I looked back to her spirit.

Wendy :New Orleans certainly is a character in her own right. To walk its streets is to walk a history lesson : LaSalle, Lafitte, Desire (doesn't the desire for power drive history? LOL.)

Elliot :I would have welcomed your company walking those dark streets by myself after Katrina! Thanks. Your Meilori interview is just around the bend. You do have insurance, don't you? Cue the spooky music.

Thank you, Lorelei :This is one of my favorite sections of FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE, too.

Sarah :Isn't it alwasys the way? A chance encounter, though short, can stay with you for months. Thanks for liking my writing. It means a lot, Roland

Margo :Each city has a face. New Orleans has many under the Mardi Gras mask it wears. Your market town sounds interesting as well, Roland

He's Back!

VOODOO & LOVE IN THE FRENCH QUARTER

LOVE & UNDEATH IN THE FRENCH QUARTER

FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE AUDIO BOOK!

The supernatural predators come out after Katrina. Can two undead legends stop them?

AFTER KATRINA, THERE IS NONE BUT TWO TO STOP THE UNDEAD

ONLY $1.99 WHEN YOU BUY THE KINDLE BOOK!

LISTEN to GHOST OF A CHANCE

Can an author be drawn into his own fictional world and killed by his own characters?

HIBBS HAS FOUND HIS VOICE!

A tale of enchantment

Souls At The Crossroads

Where do you need to be?

THE DEADLIEST ENEMY IS WITHIN

What if Stephen King wrote of the life of a blood courier?

Listen to this haunting tale of horror and love

It is 1853. An undead Texas Ranger is on board a cursed ship in search of a murderer who is wearing the face of her last victim as a mask.

Listen to the LAST FAE

When the world is mad, there is little else to do but show them what true insanity is!

Can a man marry both the moon and the sun?

In the eclipse of myth, he can

What Defense is an innocent soul against the Powers of Darkness?

Let Hibbs, the cub with no clue, show you

Before Indiana Jones or Allan Quartermain

There was Sam McCord and his doomed love for Meilori Shinseen

Alice and Victor in 1834 New Orleans

Do a review and have a 1 in 13 chance to win a Johnny Depp autograph!

Buy_FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE

Hurricane Katrina has cast New Orleans into darkness. Predators, living and undead, close in on the helpless survivors. Can Samuel McCord and a vampire priest keep the French Quarter from being drowned in blood?

Buy_LET THE WIND BLOW THROUGH YOU

Enter the dangerous world of a Native American Noir thriller where forbidden love clashes with the politics of crime

In Memoriam - Maukie my cyber friend

Maukie - the virtual cat 2 3

RITES OF PASSAGE link

The earliest Samuel McCord adventure: Dare to board a fantasy Titanic as it sails into the Bermuda Triangle

VICTOR'S HERE!

BOOK 1: No one talks openly of the misty figures seen walking along New Orleans' iron-laced terraces, casting no shadow. Of the shapes seen rising from sewer grates. And no one willingly visits the crypt of Marie Laveau at midnight. Into this strange world arrives the street orphan, Victor Standish, from Charon's Greyhound. Charon has to keep up with the times ... the End Times. And the teen destined to be called the "Ulysses of the French Quarter" has come just in time for Hurricane Katrina, the End of All Things ... and the deadly love of the Victorian ghoul, Alice Wentworth.

VICTOR AND ALICE ARE BACK!

BOOK 2: Victor's a street kid. Alice is a Victorian ghoul Their love breaks the chain of reason. Their new adventures bring the French Quarter back from the brink of nightmare.

THE RIVAL

BOOK 3: Victor & Alice are in the French Quarter of 1834. Voodoo. Demigods. Revenants. And the hilarious Menage a Trois of Death! Oh, and someone we love dies at the end.

END OF DAYS is here!

St. Marrok's. The most eerie high school in which you will ever die. Its curriculum? The End of Days. Alice Wentworth plans to get an A+.

ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM link

SEQUEL to RITES OF PASSAGE: Come aboard the doomed DEMETER with undead Texas Ranger, Sam McCord, and sail with her into the depths of madness in ADRIFT IN THE TIME STREAM.

Buy_CREOLE KNIGHTS

SEQUEL to FRENCH QUARTER NOCTURNE: The dead rise. Elder Beings strain to enter our world through Katrina devastated New Orleans. And the Angel of Death is kidnapped to clear their way. Can Sam McCord stem the tide of madness in time?

Buy_THE LAST FAE

Once there was an age undreamed where legends walked this earth … and nightmares, too. Terrible were the battles, tragic the outcome of the wars. Until finally there were only two survivors : the nightmare and one bruised legend. These are the legend’s stories, each one a different facet of the same priceless gem – a jewel that has come to believe herself worthless. So come. Listen to her. Listen to THE LAST FAE.

GHOST OF A CHANCE

What if what you wrote became real?

BURNT OFFERINGS

When dreams are sacrificed, it is the soul that burns.

CHECK OUT THE FUN!

Explore if you dare

Buy_THE LAST SHAMAN

Journey with the last Lakota shaman, Wolf Howl. The white govenments call him Drew August. Those who hunt him call him Death. The last day of Man has dawned. Watch as Wolf Howl turns to meet his human hunters. Shadow, the love of his life, returns to aid his hunters. Then, Mankind's death descends. Can he save Shadow before the world's time runs out?

BRING ME THE HEAD OF McCORD!

Only 99 cents. C'mon. Take a chance.

GHOST WRITERS IN THE SKY

LEARN TO WRITE BETTER AND LAUGH ALONG THE WAY

LAST EXIT TO BABYLON

At the dawn of the End of All Things, the Last Fae finds there is no hope ... but love.

IT'S HERE TO BUY!!

The trilogy concludes. Not even the eclipse of myth is forever. But love is. And eclipses return. Listen. The voice of Blake, son of Man, is calling across the night skies.

Buy THE PATH BACK TO DAWN

Only in the eclipse of myth can a young man find himself with both the Moon and the Sun as his brides. Can he survive what follows?

Buy_LOVE LIKE DEATH

From the pages of THE LAST FAE springs this paranormal romance/thriller. Fallen, the last fae, discovers the name of the young teenager to whom she lost her heart : Blake Adamson.But she also discovers what happens when you believe your fears over your love : heartache and loss. And so Blake Adamson finds himself torn between two loves : one fae, the other an alien drinker of souls. Their love is deadly, but love, like death, will have its way.

THE BEAR WITH 2 SHAD0WS link

Based on the stories my Lakota mother told me as a child when I was deathly ill in a freezing Detroit basement apartment. Think a Native American LORD OF THE RINGS.

OCTORBER 3RD

Read the shadowy origin of ROSE RED

FROM THE GREAT BEYOND HOP!

You dare not miss it!!

ZOMBIE PREPAREDNESS!

LISTEN TO THE CDC

Thanks, Alex!

THE WORLDS OF ROLAND YEOMANS

Donna Hole astonishes with her insights on my linked worlds

FANTASTIC REVIEW OF THE LEGEND OF VICTOR STANDISH

Michael Di Gesu does a masterful review. I am honored by his friendship

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LIFE LESSONS taught me by GYPSY

Dedicated to GYPSY

PAPYRUS PRODUCTIONS

Have Wendy make your book into a trailer that wows the reader!

HELP THE HURTING

100% of the profits for ALL my books this FEBRUARY are going to THE SALVATION ARMY. My Valentine's gift to the hurting.

Buy_BLOOD WILL TELL

One lone telepath finds himself a helpless spectator as the race of Man is subjugated into mindless drones by the very blood within their bodies.When the war is over, and he finds himself totally alone ... How can he go on and why?

CALL ME TOMBS

The last Lakota Heyoka faces voodoo and ultimate evil in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania with his Hellhound, Puppy

CATCH FIRE!

BLOG TOUR FOR ALEX J, CAVANAUGH'S NEWEST NOVEL

SIV'S BLOGFEST!

The Norse Gods Are Watching You!

BRAINE at TALK SUPE

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NERDY IS THE NEW SEXY!

BECOME A JEDI KNIGHT FOR TEENS

THE SECRET OF SPRUCE KNOLL

Help save the endangered species of Earth by buying THE SECRET OF SPRUCE KNOLL!

AMAZON KEEPS SELLING OUT!

Written by the author who could very well turn out to be the new William Faulkner, Elliot Grace